Brown Ale

A malt beer, sweeter and less hoppy than bitter, usually darker in colour.

This poem about the comforts of brown ale is included in the comic play 'Robin Hood or Sherwood Forest', possibly by John Dryden, about 1735;

When the chill sciroco blows
And winter tells a heavy tale
When pies and daws and rook and crows
Do sit and curse the frost and snows
Then give me ale
Old brown ale
Nut brown ale
Stout brown ale
O give me stout brown ale

Ale that the plowman's heat up keeps
And equals it to tyrant thrones
That wipes the eye that ever weeps
And lulls in sweet and dainty sleeps
Th'o'er wearied bones
Old brown ale &c